{"id":1595,"date":"2018-09-06T18:01:17","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T18:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/?p=1595"},"modified":"2018-09-06T18:01:17","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T18:01:17","slug":"blog-september-6th-loved-everylastingly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=1595","title":{"rendered":"Blog September 6th \u201cLoved Everylastingly\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n“Every Day With Jesus” – “Guaranteed” originally written by Selwyn Hughes<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“How Can I Love You More”? featuring Lucy Stimpson- Maynard from album “Love is the Way” recorded and produced by Bob Ross<\/p>\n

A couple of weeks ago I shared a song that I had recently written for the sequel to Risen! The Musical -which has a working title of \u201cThe Acts of the Apostles- Part One – Fire!\u201d<\/p>\n

The song is called \u201cNothing Can Separate Us From Christ\u2019s Love\u201d and on Friday of last week I noticed that Selwyn Hughes in his daily devotion \u201c\u201cEvery Day With Jesus\u201d \u201cGuaranteed.\u201d referred to the same quote from Romans 8:35. I therefore thought that today I would share with you extracts from Selwyn\u2019s devotion, the theme of which is the qualities that Peter urges us to acquire in 2 Peter 1:5-7 – that is faith, goodness, knowledge, self -control ,perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love<\/p>\n

We come now to the last quality on Peter\u2019s list- love (2Peter 1;7) It is no surprise that the ladder of Christian virtues should end in love. Warm friendliness is wonderful but the love that Peter says we should make every effort to add to our faith is a reflection of that agape love that God has shown to us. <\/em><\/p>\n

How different is God\u2019s love from the natural love that we find in our hearts! The love we offer others is conditional love- the kind that says \u201cLove me and I will love you.\u201d \u201cDo this and you can count on my love.\u201d This love is not like the love of God. We are not loved by God for what we do and no failure can rob us of His love. While sin can cause a break in the relationship, it does not stop God loving us. <\/em><\/p>\n

This love is initiated in heaven. \u201cWe love because He first loved us\u201d (I John 4:19) That is the great thing about agape love- it initiates. This is, in part why we cannot explain why God loves us. To explain it would require Him to love us for some reason but, as we have seen, He loves us for ourselves alone. He chose to love because He is love. Nothing in us gave rise to His love and nothing in us can extinguish it. It is love without condition and it is love without end. <\/em><\/p>\n

IN Jeremiah 31; 3 we read \u201cI have loved you with an everlasting love.\u201d When we think about this kind of love the poverty of our own love comes over us and we realise our love is not like the love of God. How amazing to know we are loved everlastingly. The apostle Paul rejoiced in this truth when he cried \u201cWho shall separate us from the love of Christ\u201d? (Romans 8:35) Divine love is love without reason and without end. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Quote for the week:<\/p>\n

Pain is inevitable misery is optional.<\/p>\n

The Word for Today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Every Day With Jesus” – “Guaranteed” originally written by Selwyn Hughes   “How Can I Love You More”? featuring Lucy Stimpson- Maynard from album “Love is the Way” recorded and produced by Bob Ross A couple of weeks ago I shared a song that I had recently written for the sequel to Risen! The Musical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1598,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1595\/revisions\/1598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}